1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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Plain Talk
I am used to receiving invitations from embassies on various occasions: national day celebrations, visits by political figures, dinners with government dignitaries. Yet the invitation I received from the Irish Ambassador, Peter Gunning, was different. It was to meet Declan Kiberd, professor of Anglo-Irish literature and drama at University College, Dublin. He is visiting Cairo to attend a seminar about Egyptian and Irish literature at Ain Shams University, where he will give the keynote address.
It was a literary luncheon, reminiscent of similar occasions I attended in London, many of which were organised by the English PEN. This time, however, I was in the company of Ain Shams University faculty, many of whom had been either colleagues or students. It was a wonderful opportunity, moreover, in that the discussion focused on one of my favourite subjects, namely Irish literature and its leading figures: W B Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory... I have always perceived a striking resemblance between Irish literature of the 1920s -- the Irish Resistance, the Easter Rising, the Black and Tans -- and Egyptian literature inspired by the 1919 Revolution.
In addition to his work at University College, Professor Kiberd has published a number of books, including Inventing Ireland and Irish Classics. And it was on the latter that the discussion was centred. What does he mean by "Irish classics"? Does the term refer only to those works written in Gaelic?
Kiberd adopts a more inclusive approach. Alongside Gaelic works, he discusses Anglo-Irish writers, like Swift, Oscar Wilde, Shaw and, of course, writers of the Celtic Twilight movement.
There is no doubt that Anglo-Irish writers have enriched English literature, becoming an essential part of it. Like Anglo-Indian writing, Irish literature has introduced new and unique flavours to the English language. The writings of Shaw, for example, have a uniquely Irish dimension. The long introductions he wrote for his own plays to my mind reflect a uniquely Irish love of story telling. His caustic humour stands out, distinct from English humour. Though never a nationalist in the usual sense, he was known to express strong anti-British feelings. One passage in his introduction to John Bull's Other Ireland reads: "Denshawai is a little Egyptian village in the Nile Delta. It has pigeon houses: for the villagers keep pigeons just as an English farmer keeps poultry. Try to imagine the feelings of an English village if a party of Chinese officers suddenly appeared and began shooting the ducks, the geese, the hens, the turkeys and carried them off, asserting that they were wild birds."
Shaw goes on to describe how the villagers complained about receiving no redress when a party of English officers went pigeon shooting in the village. And the law failed them in their hour of need. I will not bore the readers with the details. Suffice it to say that Shaw gives the names and ages of the villagers in question. His account reads like a story, and the vividness with which he brings it to the attention of English readers is remarkable. One fateful day (13 June 1913), four khaki clad officers had driven to the village and begun shooting when the villagers started pelting them with stones. In fear, the officers ran off, and after a long race in the heat, one was hit by sunstroke and died.
Sarcastically, Shaw describes the British reaction: two men were sentenced to penal servitude for life; one was hanged. "But as a mark of consideration for the family," Shaw continues, "he was hanged in full view of his own house, with his wife and children and grandchildren enjoying the spectacle from the roof."
In addition to Professor Kiberd's visit, an Irish theatre troupe is also in town, to perform a dramatisation of Oscar Wilde's tale The Happy Prince, at the Hanager Theatre, in Cairo, and later in Alexandria.
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